In which issues concerning the profession of philosophy are bitched griped about

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Post-Game Show

I've got a lot on my plate this week, so I won't have much time to post any of my own interesting thoughts until after some of these Bowl games are over. But I wanted to register my agreement with the observations of anonymous 1:50, who writes:

I assume there will be a post game thread [indeed], but in the spirit of thread hijacking and impatience, I was curious about trends those on the market for several years noticed. It seemed to me that slightly fewer schools did APA interviews, and even even fewer participated in the smoker. (Both nights it seemed like there were very few candidates at tables)

But it was hard for me to get a handle on overall numbers, especially because I didn't have any comparison class.

Thoughts?

It did seem to me that there were fewer departments interviewing at the conference this year; the ballroom seemed pretty sparsely populated, at least in comparison to past years. And it also seemed to me that there were a lot fewer departments with tables at the Smoker--and that several of the departments who did have tables were not interviewing. Additionally, it seemed to me that there were comparatively more applicants using the placement service than two years ago (which is the most recent year I know anything about, since I skipped Boston last year). I'm not sure what to make of this last thing.

Also, I wanted to express my gratitude to the Smokers who left suggestions in the "Things to Do" thread. I was able to put together a pretty nice sightseeing day on the basis of your suggestions. Thanks!

Is this a good forum for questions about on campus visits? I am worried about how to deal with the fact that I am nursing a newborn. If I get an on campus, I'll bring someone with me to take care of the babe, but I will still need to nurse him or pump every few hours. How can I bring this up with the sc? I'd like to somehow say that I have a medical issue that requires me to vanish every few hours for about 30 minutes, but I'm not sure this will fly.

5:42--just tell the appropriate people of your situation--any reasonable person would see the need. I would add that any SC not understanding of that is signal that you don't want to be there. And I would add that this is not medical at all--it's life, and normal.

5:42--On the issue of breastfeeding a newborn: I'm in the same situation and do have a campus visit. I asked the committee if they would please schedule some time and a location for me to pump. I agree with 7:31--life and normal. I think it's probably beneficial for everyone (from older male professors to aspiring female graduate students) for working mothers to be visible in this way. In my case, the baby is staying at home and avoiding a long plane journey with its recirculated air. I'm looking forward to several days of thinking mostly about philosophy and to the best nights' sleep I will have had since the baby was born!

I noticed that there were far fewer schools taking interview requests than in 2007 and 2008. There were only about five. There were something like 15 in 2007. And one of them this year (Columbia) was apparently a mistake. They never signed in to receive those requests, the two search committees there (the political philosophy job and the Barnard job) had no idea about this, and the race job had no representatives there from the search committee (and they told me that no decisions had been made about that job yet).

5:42--from someone who's been there: you should be given an office or private room, with a lockable door, in which to pump. Ask for this if it is not offered. Additionally, bring some tissues/wipes for cleanup in case of splashes or spills and an opaque bag (a paper bag will do) with you in order to transport your bottles of pumped milk down the corridor to the bathroom drain (if you are dumping it). Nothing compares to the curious stares of the hyper-observant grad students of the hiring department as you walk down the corridor with your milk in hand. Also, have a backup shirt or top folded in your bag just in case.

5:42-- heed those responding to your question, but all should know this: you need to set the tone about how you both want and expect to be treated. There ought to be nothing to hide about breast feeding a newborn, and you should in no way signal that there might be. Projecting confidence as you request the time you need to pump not only will ensure your request is respected, it will also send a signal about your own readiness to assume responsibilities of the job.

Can we get a thread going of awkward smoker stories? I was on the market this year, and last week at the smoker another job candidate actually tried to put me on the spot at a smoker table in conversation with the chair of the hiring department. Luckily I held up well, but I couldn't believe that a fellow candidate was explicitly trying to fuck me at the table in front of the chair. Made me think that this whole smoker thing must immediately be severed from the hiring process.

I think saying you have a "medical issue" rather than being honest about what you need would be a mistake. The ambiguity tells the SC you are hiding something, which might cause concerns for them. (e.g. Is this person a drug addict who needs to disappear every few hours?)When my students need to be excused from class, or an exam, I require them to give me the minimal amount of information for me to excuse them. They don't have to tell me a lot of private details, but just enough so that I understand the need. I think telling the SC that you are a nursing mom and need a few minutes every few hours is telling them exactly enough, without getting into private details. And if they're going to be jerks about it, that tells you something about them as potential colleagues.

I've been a nursing mom for a year, going to conferences and talks (I already have a job) and pumping on these trips. I was definitely nervous to ask about pumping, but everyone has been *super* nice about it! Many people have experience as parents--either they were nursing moms, or their partners were--and so they just aren't at all weirded out. They don't have that "TMI" reaction I was fearing.I do think it's a good idea to be very specific about what you want. I always say I'd like to "borrow an office" and I ask for forty minutes (which for me includes the time washing out my pump parts; you might need more or less time).I like the advice of the opaque bag to carry things in.I always bring lots of paper towels.I keep the milk, so I bring ice packs and coolers on my trip. The hotel front desk will have the ice packs frozen overnight for me so I can pick them up in the morning, and the hotel lends me a fridge for the milk until I go home. (I always have to call ahead to make sure the hotel can do these things.)

I just want to say woohoo to the number of pregnant and nursing people on the market this year. From posts on this and other blogs, there seems to be a not-insubstantial number of them (i.e. some number >5). That's already more than there seemed to be a couple years ago.

Going on the market is already a stressful time and to be able to do that while also dealing with stuff like pregnancy-related issues and nursing newborns is kickass.

Absolutely do not claim you have a 'medical issue'! That sends up red flags and is not true!

Story:

My third year at the place I have now been...forever...I decide to have a 2nd child. When I got the form for pregnancy leave, it was actually the medical disability form. I crossed out every reference to 'disability' or 'accident' and filled in'pregnancy.' The next year I got on to the personnel and policies committee and we drew up a proper form for pregnanacy leaves.

Pregnancy and parenting are not disorders. Hell, if we don't reporduce, what futures will our colleges and nis have?

TO: CTS: I understand your unhappiness with the use of the word "disability," but women in recent decades won some important court cases so they can now claim disability leaves and disability insurance for pregnancy leaves. At one time, they were disqualified from receiving those benefits as pregnancy was considered a voluntary condition that could/should have been avoided.

First, thanks phil smoker for providing an anonymous forum for asking questions like this. It is nice to hear from other women out there who are in or have recently gone through similar circumstances.

Second, I think my real worry is not so much about getting the stink eye for nursing but that by asking for a room to nurse I'll be letting everyone in on the fact that I have a kid. From my experience (and believe me I've had them!!!) and from comments in this and other forums, I believe that this could lead even an enlightened committee to be prejudiced against my future success as a philosopher and therefore against my candidacy. Of course it would be illegal to discriminate against me because I have children, but...

So, I was wondering if there was a way to make my excuses without revealing my reasons. I have never had an on campus before, so I don't know what the schedule is like, but I can imagine that there are few if any breaks. In a perfect world, it seems that sc's might schedule in breaks so that women in my situation don't have to inform the committee of their family status unless they want to.

Also... about a recent comment:

"At one time, they were disqualified from receiving those benefits as pregnancy was considered a voluntary condition that could/should have been avoided."

Hmm...I asked to go on leave three years ago when I was pregnant and was told that I couldn't because it was a voluntary condition. Was that illegal? Maybe I should ask for my tuition money back!

While you are on-campus, you will likely not feel that you have your own space to breathe in. You will certainly not be able to hide the fact that you need to attend to a child regularly. (It is possible I am wrong, but all my own experience and the testimony of everybody I know suggests otherwise.) Attempting to hide this will, barring a miracle, alarm the interviewing department. It feels like a terrible idea to do anything but be transparent about your situation.

If you bring your baby, then re-read the advice from 8:56. It is excellent and precisely the approach you should take. Confident, comfortable with your situation, and friendly.

It was not my experience that having a child hurt me during my on-campus. But that's just my experience.

The on-campus tends to be full-time, with very little down time. Expect to eat 3 meals a day with colleagues. Expect them to show you around town. Expect someone to escort you from one event and one meeting to the next. In other words, unless you explicitly ask for some "alone" time, don't expect it. If you do get breaks, you can't reasonably expect them to coincide with times when you might need them. If you need a regular break to pump or nurse, your best bet is to ask in advance, and be honest about your reasons. Otherwise, it could get weird and awkward, and you'll look like you're hiding something (which you are). That's not going to go over well.

And although I would personally be loathe to do so, I think it would be prudent to leave the baby at home, if possible. Between the hardship of travel, and your long, long days during the on-campus, quality family time won't be part of the equation.

The scarcity of tables at the smoker may have been prompted by worries that having late-night, alcohol-ridden second interviews in dimly lit ballrooms is not fair and may introduce forms of implicit bias. It discriminates against candidates who are shy, need a lot of sleep, are pregnant, have lighter voices that make them difficult to understand under noisy conditions (not only women), those experiencing even the slightest hearing problem, etc. I was relieved to see the department I was interviewing with did not have a table. In the weeks running up to the APA, statements like these have been posted: http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/12/a-plea-to-end-informal-interviews-at-the-apa-reception.htmlI know at least two other schools, additional to the one I interviewed with, who explicitly said they would not have a table at the smoker this year for the reasons mentioned earlier.

My experience is that, if you are a female philosopher with children, you have to prove or somehow demonstrably show that you are committed to philosophy and won't, e.g., stop publishing or being involved in the department once you have tenure. Male philosophers who have children do not face this.

Bringing your baby to your job interview encourages this biss from those who are inclined to it. Leave the baby at home. Get the job. Then bring the baby to the department.

Don't get me wrong: in a fair world we wouldn't have to deal with this, but the world isn't fair. Philosophy as a field is still in the 1980s with regard to its attitudes to women.

I, too, can confirm that the hotel is charging the APA for underbooking. I think it might be more like $80,000, but I don't remember the exact figure Mr. President told me. It's complicated by the fact that the hotel was offering rooms for less than the conference rate in the days leading up to the conference. So there may be some negotiation yet to come.

on the nursing question, I recommend that you ask for the pumping time well in advance of your visit. I was in the same boat a few years ago and found that a) it was no big deal and b) every person I asked expressed their appreciation for letting them know far in advance, particularly as campus visits get so booked up. And I second the advice to leave the baby at home! You need the break, and your colleagues need to know that you are not going to be the one with a crying baby attached to the hip.

7:11, love this. Talk about caring profs who "want their grad students to succeed." Breast feeding moms on the job market--you gals rock big time. But I think that leaving the baby at home might not be optimal for everyone. Having the baby nearby might give you psychological comfort. When I was separated from my newborn while conferencing I was mostly (irrationally) anxious and far from rested. If I had a campus visit, I'd definitely take my baby (and spouse) along precisely because those campus visits are already super stressful. Well, that's me anyway. Everyone is different.

Speaking of bringing spouses to campus visits, what's the best way to broach this with the search committee? Can one just say "I'd like to bring my partner along so that she/he can look into housing options (employment in the area or provide baby-care or whatever reason applies)."

Is your question about whether the SC will object to your partner staying in your hotel room? If your partner is going to come, you should mention it, rather than being sneaky about it. The SC is not going to pay for the plane ticket.

IMO, saying that your partner is going to check into housing options might seem rather presumptuous at the fly-out stage.

I may have been the other candidate who put you on the spot. Believe it or not: I did so accidentally, and I'm really sorry about it. I felt like a dick as soon as I did it. It was one of those moments where I wanted to ask you a question about your idea/proposal, and only after making a somewhat negative comment, did I realize how insensitive I was being. I was very tired.

If it makes you feel any better, the department seemed to really like you, and I know for a fact I had no chance at the position (given how late I was contacted for an interview). Good luck.

Regarding the underbooking question: the APA website linked to the hotel website and not the "discounted" APA rate page. I have a feeling a lot of people reserved their room through the regular channel and didntt count as APA attendees.

Hey Smokers, this is a little off topic but it still seems like the best place to raise the question. I had an APA interview at a school that would be my dream job. I had a great, informal conversation with one of the committee members the day before my interview, during which it became clear that they were very interested in me. Unfortunately, my interview ended up being so-so overall, with some bad parts. So I'm pretty worried.

I'm still waiting for news, but I've heard that first round interviews really have to be extraordinarily bad or good to hurt or help your chances. SCs, I hear, go into first round interviews with a fairly clear ranking of candidates, and if you're at or near the top it would take a serious interview failure to knock you out. This makes me somewhat hopeful, given the conversation I had the night before the interview.

Does this ring true to those of you out there with experience on either side of the interview table?

word verification: bowel, as in, well, there are just too many good options here to pick one.

Anon 10:29: For what it's worth, I had an interview at the APA that I thought I *completely* bombed, then got a call for a campus visit about 2 hrs. later. This shows either that interviews don't matter much, or that interviewees don't have a clue how they actually go, or (most likely) both of the above.

This is just my experience. But when I was on a SC, we did not rank candidates before the first interview. Our process was as follows: First, each member of the SC reviewed the application files. We each (there were 3 of us) noted Yes/Maybe/No in our notes. In our first meeting, we compared notes. We decided ahead of time we would only interview those with three Yes votes. (If we didn't have enough such applicants, we would then discuss those files that had 2 Yes votes and a Maybe. But we had enough.) After the first round of interviews, we then split the candidates into two groups: Bring to Campus/Don't Bring to Campus. We decided ahead of time that we would only bring to campus those candidates who had three BtC votes. We could fly out only 3 candidates, and we had more than 3 BtC "finalists," so that's when we hashed out actual rankings. Honestly, that was tough, because at that point we had 5 very qualified candidates, all of whom interviewed well. (For those interested, our final decision on who to bring to campus rested entirely on teaching experience; all else being equal, we thought, better teaching experience was a plus.)

From what I have been told, this is not how everyone does it; even in my own department, other SCs have operated differently. I like to think that our SC went well because at the first few stages, each SC member evaluated the candidates on his/her own; there was no arguing or bickering to rank candidates early on, no pushing for favorites.

Regards the question of bringing your partner to a campus interview, I think it is unnecessary, because hiring institutions typically pay for a second "recruitment visit" for the offered candidate and family. The interview and recruitment visits are different exercises, and may be difficult to smoothly mix: odd to go on a real estate tour in a place you don't have, and may never have, a job. Of course, this means two trips, if you get an offer, but that's a problem we wish for everybody.

As has been pointed out, many campus interviews are non-stop, dawn to doom, affairs, and having another person around may be a distraction you'd rather not have. The same reasoning is relevant to children as well as partners, but childcare issues may make children's presence mandatory. If children accompany you, I agree with the advice to be upfront and explicit about childcare needs.

A related point worth mentioning is that hiring departments sometimes wildly overstep in the demands they make of candidates. My most egregious experience was a 5-day (!) campus visit, which is well outside the norm, but over-scheduling and badgering candidates to a point past exhaustion is too common. (My second place story is being forced to meet with nearly every member of a 30 person Humanities and Social Sciences unit, most of whom were evidently skimming my CV for the first time as I walked in their door.)

My advice is to be politely firm, and insist on some downtime, such as an hour before your talk, to rest and be off stage. Another problem is so much cross examination during meals that one has trouble taking in nutrition; again, one might have to say something like, "I'd love to talk about that later, but right now my lovely blackened grouper is getting cold." One has to be careful here, since some departments (and some people) seem to require the candidate putting up with abuse, and it's worth enduring some to land a job. But within the limits of the local etiquette (which can't be known a priori) one should set some boundaries so that one can be at their best for the big events, like the talk or teaching demo.

"hiring institutions typically pay for a second "recruitment visit" for the offered candidate and family"

I've been offered a few jobs and have been on the offering side of jobs and I've never heard of such a practice. This may be a testament to something about the institutions that have offered me jobs, me or where I teach, but I suspect that such 2nd visits are very much the exception, not the rule.

At our research University, I've seen both: cases where the candidate brought out a partner to a campus visit (not paid for by us) and cases where, after an offer was made, a candidate brought out a partner (this time on our dime). So there's another data point that it can happen. Once you have an offer, it can't hurt to ask.

I was very visibly pregnant this year on the job market, I had lots of interviews at great schools, and my policy was not to mention it at all. If you don't make it seem like a "problem" or a "condition" or whatever, others won't either. People have their prejudices, and there is nothing you can do about that. Just project absolute confidence (this goes for pregnant and non-pregnant or nursing ladies out there) and people will follow your lead.

I have had to deal with nursing issues in the past, at conferences and the like. In a conference, one can usually just slip out unnoticed. For a full on campus visit, I see no advantage whatsoever to being cagey about it. I would be upfront, and again, treat is as the ABSOLUTELY NORMAL THING THAT IT IS and people will follow your lead. If they don't, are they really people you want as your colleagues anyway? Probably not.

I am not trying to say that your concerns are not real. They are very real. But the best way to deal with messed up discrimination against mothers in this profession is to ignore it completely. There is nothing else you can do other than go out there and kick some ass, all the while being a proud nursing mama.

At my institution, SCs do not walk into the APA interviews having already ranked the candidates. I have heard many people claim that SCs do this, but my own experience does not confirm it. In fact, we operated similarly to how 7:29 described the process at their institution. (And, yes, I am unapologetically using 'their' as a gender-neutral singular pronoun.)

I think it's a bad idea to assess how the interview actually went by one's felt experience of how the interview went. I realize this is counterintuitive. However, how well an interview seems to be going tends to depend much more on the interviewing skills of the SC and not of the candidate. When a SC has those skills, then most of the candidates interviewing feel like the interview is going well. Even candidates who are interviewing terribly end up reporting that they thought the interview went brilliantly. And why wouldn't it seem that way when an SC is able to be friendly, engage the candidate easily in conversation, and keep their cards close? When the SCs' skills are lacking, then even the interviews that go swimmingly from the perspective of the SC can feel horrific to the candidates.

I've seen many cases of job candidates being wrong in both directions--thinking an interview went well when really it went poorly, and thinking an interview went poorly when really it went well. So, you can't know.

On the other hand, I doubt that a SC's prior assessments of candidates carry much weight after the interviews. Interviews are very vivid and there is a strong tendency to choose whom to fly out based solely on how well the interviews went. This is irrational, but I fear it is pervasive.

Pre-interview rankings are in the main a futile exercise because most folks being interviewed have negligible talent/skill gaps between them and as such mere interview performance often makes or breaks a candidacy.

However, there is one sense in which a pre-interview ranking is at work. In many cases, there will be one or two truly stellar candidates that clearly stand out amongst those selected for interview. For these folk to drop out of consideration they usually have to fuck up in the interview to the degree they stand out on paper.

The frustrating lesson then is this: While it is a mistake to think that committees conduct interviews with their minds already made up about flyouts, it is also a mistake to think that committees come into interviews tableau rasa.

One more data point: When I was offered my current (tenure-track) job, the hiring department flew me and my spouse out for a recruitment visit. They took us to dinner, took us on a real estate tour, etc. FWIW, mine is a public university in a location that many people would deem undesirable, especially if they were unfamiliar with it.

"Am thinking that John Doris illicitly generalized from John Doris's job search experience."

Looks like others here besides me have had the experience of subsidized recruitment visits. Perhaps I should have said "not atypical" rather than "typical," but I seriously doubt that such visits are "very much the exception."

I think any dispute about my generalization, even supposing it's an interesting dispute, obscures the important issue: mixing interview and recruitment visits may complicate things in ways that adversely affect the candidate's chances. That risk is worth avoiding, even if small. And there may be little gained by doubling up, even if the hiring department doesn't cover a recruitment visit: If you don't get the job, your family wasted time that might have been spent doing other things (like earning wages); if you do get the job (and the institution won't pay), there's less difficulty about paying out of pocket (or credit card) since you're going into a job that will likely be stable for some years.

In addition to the minimum-room $100k charge thing, I also heard that They are Planning to move the Eastern to the first week in January. Second- or third-hand, but from the same source that mentioned the now-multiply-rumored minimum room thing.

"I also heard that They are Planning to move the Eastern to the first week in January."

I spoke with Linda Nuoffer, who told me that in light of the recent survey about meeting times they were going to try moving it to later in January. She didn't specifically mention the first week and she didn't indicate that the move would be permanent or irrevocable. But I think this basically confirms your rumor.

They're locked into deals with hotels for at least the next two Easterns, I believe.

Well, then I hope they're budgeting for an $80K penalty each year on account of not meeting the quota for reservations. More and more departments are bypassing the Eastern in favor of Skype interviews, and job candidates may get tired of paying nearly twice as much for "student rate" rooms at the conference hotel.